Becoming Clean
by SaladforPresident
Summary: "Why are you here, Spock?" Jim asks, following Spock as he pads to the replicator, "I would imagine the sonic washers are a more logical choice, not these clunky old Earth things." - K/S.


**Hi yall! VP here. As of Sept 10 2018 I've edited this story from it's original version. It's not much different, but better organized and detailed.**

 **An afternoon in the Enterprise laundry room. Enjoy!**

* * *

Laundry machines kick and rumble. Sweet soap fills the air, fruity and floral and musky. The automatic lights shine a dim white across the room.

They weren't exactly necessary, the big, twenty-first century washers and driers; the sonic washers were much more efficient, not to mention cost-effective. But the old washers gave the mostly-human crew a sort of comfort. Science officer Reynolds told Jim once, pulling a lump of blues out of the dryer, that the lavender soap the Enterprise stocked was the same kind her sister used. It reminded Reynolds of their tiny city apartment, where she'd left her sister three years ago, before boarding the starship. It left Kirk with a warmth in his chest, for the dedicated science officer he knew, and the sister he did not. So the next time Kirk did laundry, he chose the lavender, and thought of Reynolds the whole week after.

A creak of metal and the pad of regulation shoes on stairs tell Jim someone is coming. A science officer, judging by the bright blue of their shirt. The officer is unfamiliar with these stairs, rickety as they are, and steps down slowly. When they reach the bottom, Kirk blinks in the dim light, sure that his eyes must be mistaken.

"Good afternoon, Mister Spock," Jim says, a smile stretching across his face. Sure enough, the Vulcan has a laundry basket in hand, with a heap of blues and blacks inside. Spock pauses, mirroring Jim's surprised blink.

"Jim," Spock says, putting his laundry basket down on one of open washers, "It is fortunate that I have found you here." Spock begins loading the washer with no further explanation. Curious.

No matter. Jim holds out two fingers to the Vulcan, who presses his own to Kirk's for a moment before returning to his laundry.

"Why are you here, Spock?" Jim asks, following Spock as he pads to the replicator, "I would imagine the sonic washers are a more logical choice, not these clunky old Earth things."

Spock taps a code into the replicator and out it spits a dollop of thin, purple detergent. Lavender, Jim notes. Spock looks hard at the cup for a moment, his lips slightly pursed, seeming in conflict with it, or perhaps himself.

"I am conducting an experiment about the effectiveness of Terran laundry practice."

"Ah," Jim says, reigning in the impish curiosity that's begun to bubble, "And what motivated this unusual experiment?"

Spock is quiet for a moment, pouring the detergent into the machine with a precise tilt of his wrist.

"My mother," He says finally, "is particularly sentimental about the Terran way. I endeavor to find the most effective method, based on a combination of variables."

Jim barely suppresses a grin. Even after all this time, Spock manages to surprise him. "I see," Kirk says, "Can I assume you are reporting these findings to your mother as you go? Or will you reveal the results at the end?"

"Our communication about the matter is ongoing," Spock says. Kirk does grin at that. He can't help but imagine Spock, stoic as any Vulcan could be, having weekly holovids with his mother, describing the merits of different scents of detergent compared to the coarse unscented Vulcan sands. Kirk finds it hard to contain his delight.

"Does Mrs. Grayson find your research to be, ah, beneficial?"

"Yes," Spock says without pause.

Spock starts the machine and it thumps, adding another note to the pulse of the room.

"Say, Spock," Jim says after a moment of thought, "I don't think you're being entirely logical here."

Spock swivels and raises both eyebrows at Jim.

Jim grins, "Now I don't mean you're being illogical, I'd never insult you like that, I just mean you're not thinking about the whole picture. Laundry is…" Jim pauses, wets his lips, grasps at the air for the words. He recalls the hypnotic flutter of the clothesline in his backyard in Riverside. "An intensely personal experience. Sure, it's not the same for everyone – I know a few engineers who'd marry their sonic if given the chance—but there are emotional factors you may not be considering."

Spock thinks for a moment. "Your logic is sound," he says, bringing his hands to parade rest. "Would you be willing to enlighten me on some of these, as you call them, emotional factors?"

Jim's grin softens into a minute smile, "I would." But then, Tarsus comes back to him. He amends, "I'm not sure if I'll be able to find the words for all of it."

Spock considers again for a moment, watching his clothes swirl around in the washing machine a couple times, before saying, "We can engage in a mind meld." It is half statement, half question.

A mind meld. It's not new for them, although usually it's during sex, or after a particularly harrowing mission. Times of high stakes, high importance. Nothing so mundane as an afternoon in the Enterprise laundry room. But Kirk thinks of the Iowa heat, the hypnotic fluttering of the bedsheets on the clothesline, and how he could never find the words for it, not in all the languages known to the Federation.

"Yes," He says, and looks back at Spock. Spock reaches across the distance between them and puts his warm fingers on Kirk's face, against his meld points. The familiar tingle begins at the base of Kirk's spine when Spock speaks.

"My mind to your mind. My thoughts

 _to your thoughts_

 _Little Jimmy Kirk sausage fingered with something stuck in his teeth always in his teeth,. sitting on the back porch, heat rolling off the wood. Candy, stickymelting in his hands, Momma Kirk with her hair blowing behind her pinning one side of a big white sheet on the clothesline, Dadda Kirk pinning the other. Jimmy unable to look away, his sticky mouth slack. The white billowing sheet waves like a flag. Dadda says there isn't any air in space so their flags don't wave like that, what about the flag on the moon Jimmy asked once and George just laughed big deep like the sunshine bleeding through the sheet._

 _Jimmy Kirk coming home with blood caking his knees, stinging raw hurts hurts hurts Winona hoists him on the washing machine staticky and still warm from the wash they're his favorite pants the ones with the rocketship on the pockets and now they're ruined because he had to prove he could swing higher than Sam Jimmy buries his face in his hands Momma tosses his pants in the sink and uncaps the vinegar putrid sharp Jimmy's nose stings but its magic! the stain swirls down the drain in a soft light pink, Jimmy's legs burn under his bandaids._

 _Momma tells him, you can always make something clean again, you just have to know how._

 _Jimmy keeps a bottle of vinegar under his pillow pulls it out in the dead of night rinses his shirts and pants and socks in the bathroom sink, biting his breath back in his throat to keep quiet. he knows the vinegar burn its not from jumping off the swings but swinging his fists at Finny and the other bullies because they don't love others like they should. Jimmy knows how to dress his burning red knuckles and busted lips he doesn't know how to tell his parents he got suspended for fighting the anger inside him is sharp like the vinegar. Jimmy only hangs his clothes out on the line when George is offplanet and Winona is asleep_

 _Jim goes off-planet settler colony fourth from the sun, they wash their clothes in cold water stream water every sunday. He stains his jeans in dirt and manure but he learns to make them clean again, laundry day is Sunday sunlight streams speckled through Sycamores, Jim Kirk smiles kicks the water up soaking his pants, cold wet running down his legs, laughs with his borrowed family, his clothes smell of pine and dirt but are clean again always clean again_

 _it is not long before jim forgets clean the same way kodos forgets compassion forgets the little farmhouse in the back of the colony jimmy and cousin hide under the sycamores he has been in these clothes for six days cousins ask when they will eat again jim does not know does not remember full does not remember clean_

 _cousin dies with hunger clawing at her throat so many days later the ground is too hard for jim to bury her in dirt under fingernails will never be clean jim does not want them to be clean it is the last thing he carries of his cousin her birthday was coming up does that make her five or six if he cleans his fingernails he will lose her_

 _warehouse fire, rescue shuttle hypospray hypospray hypospray jim stands in the shower fully clothed dirt and grime and sweat swirling down the drain, he cannot feel his cousin any more aches at the loss squeezes his eyes shut until the water runs cold. soaked clothes drip slosh plink over floor, the clothes laid out on the hospital bed are too big on him too smooth they are the first clean clothes he has worn in weeks it feels wrong his cousin was buried in the shade dirt thrown over her was she five or was she six was she five or was she six five or six jim does not know how to make it clean_

 _The washers at the academy spit at him and leak into his sock feet, he laughs, James Kirk has learned to laugh. His hands are calloused and oil-streaked from the day there's a scar on his knuckle in the shape of a lima bean it hits him he sung his cousin happy birthday under the sycamore that would become her grave so she was six, and James Kirk is now approaching thirty, he pulls his staticky pants out of the dryer he is clean again somehow Tarsus dirt and sun can not touch him he closes his eyes and recalls the stream water laundry water today is Sunday and he is clean again_

Jim pauses, expecting the connection to end, expecting Spock's volcano-hot fingers to retract, but they do not. They linger, and then—

 _Young Spock hot from the sun legs shaky from standing in school all day, he curses his too-human stamina his aching knees his flushing face. Father carts laundry in from the warm sand and acknowledges him with a nod, tells him it is logical to rest if he is tired. Spock does not want to be tired, he lets his fingers caress the robes Father hands to him it is pleasant but pleasure is not Vulcan_

A _manda purses her lips in concentration snaps sand off the cloth, Spock informs her that it is illogical to do so as the fabric will naturally expell the sand. Amanda's smile at Spock is warm so very human, she says its an old habit from her time on earth. Spock puzzles at the logic of it, so next time he picks up a sloth of fabric and snaps it to the wind_

 _Amanda laughs as Spock snaps his robe and the sand flies back and rains on them both human shame burns his cheeks she grabs Spock's receding wrist and insists she is not laughing at him and he believes her loves her loves her loves her_

 _that night he lies on cool clean sheets and convinces himself it is logical to love his mother, swallows the guilt coiling in his throat._

 _Spock drags the laundry out to the wet sand pit, the double suns leering at him watching if he is Vulcan enough to do it. His knees burn with leftover pain, he scrubs the emerald stains out of his shirt does not know if they are his or the other boys'. His too-human body aches and smarts under his robes from fist teeth nails colliding with skin one too many jeers at his too-human body is it logical to love and hate the same person at once, the person who made him who he is? He drags his robes out of the sand and they are warm dry clean it is illogical to be disappointed at his mother's look when he drags the laundry basket back inside, the way she does not say anything but her eyes linger on his bruising lip before she turns back to stare at a desert the color of human blood._

 _Amanda leans over the railing staring at the vast red hills asks why they can't just use soap and not sand that gets everywhere, she grits her teeth so brazenly human it makes Spock ache until he doesn't let it. Humans radiate their feelings like heat from the summer sand her homesickness tastes bitter in Spock's mouth._

 _Before the Acadmey Spock had never been away from home more than nine months and three days and it is approaching three years on the starship Spock is not aggravated not impatient those are not Vulcan feelings but the sonic washers on the ship are inadequate inefficient his clothes are not sunwarmed when he pulls them from the drier there is no sand to fly back into his face and make his mother laugh a bright bell of a sound with him- he reviews a blueprint of the ship. one cannot ask a manual questions, so he calls Amanda that night, asks about Terran clothes washers and how to operate them—she exudes emotion when she responds, it is lost on him through the distance and the holovid, but she smiles, so he leaves the vid satisfied. Scientifically._

Spock's fingers leave Jim's face and Jim gasps, thrown back into his own mind, seeing double, spinning with a thousand emotions, only some of them his own. Kirk sees Spock so clearly in the moment that follows: the way his free hand lingers on the gently thudding washing machine, the human sweat tingling his neck, the green flush of his cheek.

"Are those enough... emotional factors?" Jim says, smiling weakly.

Spock's response is delayed a moment, "Yes," he says, finally, "Yes, Jim."

Jim laughs. He feels it too, the lingering effects of the meld. Spock's – or maybe Jim's?—juvenile anger bubbling just under the surface. Spock's homesickness curling in Jim's stomach. The Tarsus dirt under Jim's nails.

"Good," Jim says, stronger this time.

Silence falls between them a moment. The washing machines dance.

"Jim," Spock says, one hand still lingering on the laundry. He holds the other out with two fingers extended in a Vulcan kiss. Jim returns it. "Thank you." Spock says, and Jim feels Spock's love through their touch.

"Of course, Spock," Jim says. His smile turns impish, "I'm always glad to help you realize flaws in your logic."

Spock is too stunned to withdraw, so he gapes.

Jim laughs, and it echoes through the laundry room.


End file.
